The Mike Tomlin (and general coaching) Complaint Thread

Agreed. I wish they had taken a swing at Saleh when the Jets fired him.

 

People should be evaluating him based on the entire resume.

 

Not sure if you're following the conversation here Joel.

One of the cool things about this site (vs. say Planet Steelers) is that if you hit the "up arrow" in the quote of a post, it will take you to the post from that quote.

If you do that a couple times on the post you quoted here, you'll understand what we're talking about (hint: it's not punting on 4th and medium from mid-field).

 

KOC isn't winning a playoff game this season and he's got arguably one of the most stacked rosters in the NFL and defensive guru Flores. They are a mess.

 

Outside of the wide receiver position,the vikings are far to be stacked....They overachieve big time last season

 

I think there are parts of his career where this is true. Particularly from 2010 to 2018...although we did go to the AFCC in 2016.

But I think it's really hard to argue this reasonably after Ben's injury in 2019.

 

This.

Just like Cowher, his best trait is motivating players. Which I think is a critical skill for a HC to have in the NFL.

But he's much better served having very good to elite coordinators.

Not sure how many other people listen to the Terrible Podcast. But when we had Flores here, every week Alex was like "this is so cool, they added another new wrinkle to the defense this week".

I think we absolutely need to bring someone like Flores in to have the kind of results we used to have when LeBeau was the DC (for Tomlin and for Cowher).

I do wonder how much of them not bringing in high end coordinators is Tomlin not wanting to vs. Rooney not wanting to pay for them. My guess is that it's a little of both.

 

HEY, how are you?

Good tip about the board. I am less than 2 months old here.

In general Tomlin punts where he should go for it on 4th down. When we are in 4th and 5+ yards at the 47 yard line or closer, then he should try for a field goal with 6+ minutes to go in a close game.

Between the 48 and up to the 44 yard line on the other side of the field on 4th and 1, he should go for a 1st down.

He lives in his fears.

 

who is going to push that tush?

 

What's wrong with this picture?

 

Spot on! And Tomlin is not the kind of HC that would spend a lot of time coaching his coordinators. This is why his 'coaching tree' is barren as opposed to someone like Reid who regularly meets with the coaches. But I'm not faulting Tomlin for his tree. It's a choice you make. There's only so many hours in a week.

 

Look no further than Cowher with Maddox in 2002-2003. He totally revamped the offense around Maddox/Zeroue over Stewart/Bettis. It worked in 2002... not so much in 2003. The defense was partially to blame for the 6-10 record that year. Defense was in transition... from older players in Alexander, Flowers, Scott, Lewis as DC... to younger players Polamalu, Hope and Taylor, LeBeau as DC the following year.

Tomlin don't have the balls to make the changes necessary to make Steelers elite again.

 

When you just squeak into the playoffs it's gonna be a tough road to the Super Bowl:

Superbowl appearances by seeding.

Here is a percentage breakdown by seed:

#1 Seed - 53%
#2 Seed - 20.4%
#3 Seed - 4%
#4 Seed - 14.3%
#5 Seed - 4%
#6 Seed - 4%
#7 Seed - 0%

And:

No. 7 seeds:

Team Season Opponent Result
Colts 2020 Bills L, 27-24
Bears 2020 Saints L, 21-9
Eagles 2021 Buccaneers L, 31-15
Steelers 2021 Chiefs L, 42-21
Seahawks 2022 49ers L, 41-23
Dolphins 2022 Bills L, 34-31
Packers 2023 Cowboys W, 48-32
Steelers 2023 Bills L, 31-17
Packers 2023 49ers L, 24-21
Broncos 2024 Bills L, 31-7
Packers 2024 Eagles L, 22-10

So winning as the 7th seed is the exception, not the norm.

 

Beg to differ. Tomlin has changed his approach the last few seasons. Completely redid the ILBs a couple season ago (including coach). Completely redid the secondary (including coach). Has churned the QB position since Roethlisberger's retirement.

 

FWIW, I think the main reason Tomlin doesn't have much of a coaching tree is that we tend to hire older coordinators.

Which is kind of interesting because the team has also preferred hiring unknown HCs (although the sample size is only 2 people since Noll).

 

It hasn't worked. The results speak for themselves. Steelers defense is ranked near the bottom with Cowboys and Bengals.

Cowher got a playoff win with Maddox. Popcorn hasn't done squat in 8 years.

 

Sure. You can argue the results but you can't say he doesn't make changes.

 

Goes hand in hand with my comment that he doesn't like to spend a lot of time with coordinators. He's not a coach of coaches. So at least he understands that part of himself.

 

I was saying that last year. They had a pretty nice schedule. They played 10 games against teams that ended with a losing record and won all of those games. They played 8 games vs teams with a winning end of season winning record (including playoffs) and went 4-4. They beat the easy teams and split games with other decent teams. I remember looking at their schedule and realizing that they had not really played anyone decent when they were doing all of that winning.

 

Kraft frequented the place that made this place put up the sign

 

Warren

 

And the QBs we ran with last season have both been benched this year. Although it's not clear if Fields will still be the starter.

Their combined record this season is 0-9. We finished 10-7 last year with the same QBs.

If Tomlin and Reid switched places, I don't think Tomlin would have the same success Reid has had since they drafted Mahomes. What KC has done since drafting Mahomes is incredible.

And I also think Reid would not have done as Tomlin has done with the teams we've had since Ben got hurt. We haven't been all that good since then (certainly not when compared with KC). But it's pretty crazy that we haven't had any meaningless games re: making the playoffs despite the motley group of QBs we've played since 2019: Mason/Duck/Mason, old-man Ben, Mitch/Kenny, Kenny/Mitch/Mason, Fields/Russ.

I think that Reid is a better "high ceiling" HC. And that Tomlin is a better "high floor" HC.

I think most teams would rather have the high ceiling guy. But the Steelers have a different business model than most teams I think.

But the Steelers are different than many owners in that the Steelers is their primary business. What they want is to be competitive for a playoff berth every season (ideally every game).

Last year, I think I heard that Tomlin has only had a handful of games since he was hired where we were eliminated from playoff contention before the start of the week. IMO this is a perfect fit for the Steelers business model.

Always be competitive for a playoff spot. Make the playoffs as many times as you can. Hope to catch lightning in a bottle (i.e., buy enough lottery tickets and you'll win eventually).

I get that it's frustrating now. Just like it was frustrating losing all those home playoff games under Cowher (imagine how much hate he'd get with today's internet!). But we're in the "tread water while we wait to find the next good/great QB" mode right now.

Part of me thinks we should tank (or at least focus more on developing young players). But that's just not the business model of this team.

 

I agree with that